PLEASE, IN THE QUESTION "WHO AM I?" WHAT DOES "I" MEAN? DOES IT
MEAN THE ESSENCE OF LIFE?
Hermann Sander,
"WHO AM I?" IS NOT REALLY A QUESTION because it has no answer to it; it is
unanswerable. It is a device, not a question. It is used as a mantra. When you constantly
inquire inside, "Who am I? Who am I?" you are not waiting for an answer. Your mind
will supply many answers; all those answers have to be rejected. Your mind will say,
"You are the essence of life. You are the eternal soul. You are divine," and so on and so
forth. All those answers have to be rejected: NETI NETI -- one has to go on saying,
"Neither this nor that."
When you have denied all the possible answers that the mind can supply and devise,
when the question remains absolutely unanswerable, a miracle happens: suddenly the
question also disappears. When all the answers have been rejected, the question has no
props, no supports inside to stand on any more. It simply flops, it collapses, it disappears.
When the question also has disappeared, then you know. But that knowing is not an
answer: it is an existential experience. Nothing can be said about it, or whatever will be
said will be wrong. To say anything about it is to falsify it. It is the ultimate mystery,
inexpressible, indefinable. No word is adequate enough to describe it. Even the phrase
"essence of life" is not adequate; even "God" is not adequate. Nothing is adequate to
express it; its very nature is inexpressible.
But you know. You know exactly the way the seed knows how to grow -- not like the
professor who knows about chemistry or physics or geography or history, but like the bud
which knows how to open in the early morning sun. Not like the priest who knows about
God; about and about he goes, around and around he goes.
Knowledge is beating around the bush: knowing is a direct penetration. But the moment
you directly penetrate into existence, you disappear as a separate entity. You are no more.
When the KNOWER is no more then the knowing is. And the knowing is not ABOUT
something -- you are that knowing itself.
So I cannot say, Sander, what "I" means in the question "Who am I?" It means nothing! It
is just a device to lead you into the unknown, to lead you into the uncharted, to lead you
into that which is not available to the mind. It is a sword to cut the very roots of the mind,
so only the silence of no-mind is left. In that silence there is no question, no answer, no
knower, no known, but only knowing, only experiencing.
That's why the mystics appear to be in such difficulty to express it. Many of them have
remained silent out of the awareness that whatsoever you say goes wrong; the moment
you say it, it goes wrong. Those who have spoken, they have spoken with the condition:
"Don't cling to our words."
Lao Tzu says: "Tao, once described, is no more the real Tao." The moment you say
something about it you have already falsified it, you have betrayed it. It is such an
intimate knowing, incommunicable.
"Who am I?" functions like a sword to cut all the answers that the mind can manage. Zen
people will say it is a koan, just like other koans. There are many koans, famous koans.
One is: "Find out your original face." And the disciple asks the Master, "What is the
original face?" And the Master says, "The face that you had before your parents were
born."
And you start meditating on that: "What is your original face?" Naturally, you have to
deny all your faces. Many faces will start surfacing: childhood faces, when you were
young, when you became middle-aged, when you became old, when you were healthy,
when you were ill.... All kinds of faces will stand in a queue. They will pass before your
eyes claiming, "I am the original face." And you have to go on rejecting.
When all the faces have been rejected and emptiness is left, you have found the original
face. Emptiness is the original face. Zero is the ultimate experience. Nothingness -- or
more accurately NO-THINGNESS -- is your original face.
Or another famous koan is: "The sound of one hand clapping." The Master says to the
disciple, "Go and listen to the sound of one hand clapping." Now this is patent absurdity:
one hand cannot clap and without clapping there can be no sound. The Master knows it,
the disciple knows it. But when the Master says, "Go and meditate on it," the disciple has
to follow.
He starts making efforts to listen to the sound of one hand clapping. Many sounds come
to his mind: the birds singing, the sound of running water.... He rushes immediately to the
Master; he says, "I have heard it! The sound of running water -- isn't that the sound of one
hand clapping?"
And the Master hits him hard on the head and he says, "You fool! Go back, meditate
more!"
And he goes on meditating, and the mind goes on providing new answers: "The sound of
wind passing through the pine trees -- certainly this is the answer." He is in such a hurry!
Everybody is in such a hurry. Impatiently he rushes to the door of the Master, a little bit
apprehensive, afraid too, but maybe this is the answer....
And even before he has said a single thing the Master hits him! He is very much puzzled
and he says, "This is too much! I have not even uttered a single word, so how can I be
wrong? And why are you hitting me?"
The Master says, "It is not a question of whether you have uttered something or not. You
have come with an answer -- that is enough proof that you must be wrong. When you
have REALLY found it you won't come; there will be no need. I will come to you."
Sometimes years pass, and then one day it has happened, there is no answer. First the
disciple knew that there was no answer to it, but it was only an intellectual knowing. Now
he knows from his very core: "There is no answer!" All answers have evaporated.
And the sure sign that all answers have evaporated is only one: when the question also
evaporates. Now he is sitting silently doing nothing, not even meditating. He has
forgotten the question: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" It is no more there. It
is PURE silence.
And there are ways...there are inner paths which exist between a Master and a disciple.
And now the Master rushes towards the disciple. He knocks on his door. He hugs the
disciple and says, "So it has happened? This is it! No answer, no question: this is it. Ah,
this!"
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